202510082227 Status: #idea Tags: #history #economics # Rising populations in pre-industrial societies lead to tenant farming In pre-industrial societies, rising populations lead to rapidly rising demand for land (most people were farmers and needed land to produce food). This caused land prices to rise, incentivizing landlords to rent out their land rather than invest in improvements to agriculture such as irrigation. Moreover, the tenants themselves would not invest in the improvements due to the high rents they needed to pay + the fact that they didn’t have a stake in the upside by not owning the land. --- # References [[How Asia works_ success and failure in the world's most dynamic region]]